This invention relates to the packaging of surgical sutures and, in particular, to a retainer card for accommodating one or more suture products, e.g., a combined surgical suture-needle device, also commonly referred to as an "armed suture", or merely "a suture", as part of a suture package.
Retainers for surgical sutures are constructed according to the nature of the suture and its intended use. There are many sizes of sutures and many materials of construction such as cotton, silk, stainless steel, and braided wire. There are also several types of needles including those of straight and curved configuration. The ideal suture package protects the suture during shipping and handling, accommodates a variety of suture and needle constructions and affords easy removability of the suture-needle device(s) therefrom.
There exists many packaging arrangements for suture-needle devices. However, for the most part, these packages have been designed to accommodate a specific suture-needle configuration. That is, the package may be designed to accommodate a long straight needle or a curved needle but not both. Many packages have been developed for use with single-armed sutures, for example, a suture having a needle at one end. Packages also exist for accommodating double armed sutures, i.e., sutures possessing needles at both ends. There are also several different types of packages containing a plurality of sutures and designed in such a way as to allow all of the sutures to be removed from the package at once or one at a time.
Illustrative of known types of suture retainers are those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,206,018; 4,391,365; 4,572,363; and 4,700,833. The last mentioned of these disclosures, U.S. Pat. No. 4,700,833, describes a suture retainer, or winding card, possessing a base panel and several flaps which extend from, and fold over, the base panel to cover and secure a suture or combined suture-needle device disposed thereon. A number of die-cut U-shaped tabs are arranged along the periphery of the base, the convex portion the tabs being oriented toward the edges of the panel and away from its center. By slightly displacing the tabs from the plane of the base panel, the tabs may serve to receive a coiled length of suture. The base panel also possesses a pair of opposed D-shaped apertures for receiving a pin around which a suture may be wound, e.g., in a figure eight pattern, to facilitate an alternative suture-packaging operation.